About me

L. Stewart Marsden

Looking at the tail end of my time here on earth, I’m going to use this blog space to fill up white space with both ramblings and creations; opinions about matters that matter to me — and may matter to you, as well; poems, as the muse strikes; children’s stories that you or yours may enjoy; and the beginnings of a novel or two for you to comment on if you are so inclined.

I’m one of five siblings. My oldest sister, Marily Ann, lived briefly from Sept. 3 to Dec. 15, 1943, and I never knew her. I had a black and white framed picture of her on the table beside my bed for years. My two older sisters live a good drive away. One is a widow, and the other and her husband are busy working on their bucket list. My younger brother is a short drive away.

I’m the father of five — two boys and three girls, and I’m the grandfather of three — one boy and two girls. I am a native North Carolinian (with Minnesotan parentage) who enjoys both the mountains in the western part of the state and the beaches on its eastern coast.

Annually, the family gathers at Holden Beach during the week of July the 4th. With grandchildren and great-grands, the need for more cottages has grown exponentially.

I play a little guitar, and sometimes pick up my harmonica as well. Every once-in-a-while I get cast in a community theater production. Mostly character roles. Mostly comedies.

In addition to North Carolina, I’ve lived in Virginia, New York City and Portland, Oregon.

Farthest I’ve traveled is Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. Been to Amsterdam, Scotland and England.

I like to cook.

And, I’m a believer that it is never too late to begin new journeys, no matter the past,  and no matter your age.

To that end, I recently began a new job at the ripe old age of 62 — as a reporter with our local newspaper. I should tell you that the first two months of work at this modest enterprise were anything but tame or benign. Our area, as my editor is prone to say, is rife with big news. I was broken in on quite a few larger than average stories.

The newspaper, by the way, is the Hickory Daily Record. As a reporter, my byline is Skip Marsden.

My nom de plume is L. Stewart Marsden. I think it sounds a bit more classy than my nickname, and a little less pretentious than Lawrence.

I welcome you to share this blog with people you know. It’s an easy internet address: http://www.skipmars.com.

And, if you’d like to email me, feel free.

skipmars@gmail.com is the address.

One more shameless plug: I published my first book, Through the Glass Darkly, a collection of my eerie short stories, on Amazon. There, you can download a copy for your reader, or buy a paperback version.

It’s cheap, and I need the money. And if any publishers or literary agents are reading this, call — please — call me right now! Email, anyway. I don’t give my cell phone number out online. Too many, you know, “interesting” people out there.

I think that about covers it.

So, please — enjoy! And leave a comment, for goodness sake! That’s why I put my stuff up in a blog, to get feedback. Good, bad or ugly. Anything is helpful. At least I know I’m not shouting in a canyon and hearing only the echo of my own voice.

So if you have a blog, I try to respond with a comment whenever you “like” a work of mine. I’d prefer the comment, of course, because I have no idea what it is you like that I’m doing.

Okay, try this — make the following pledge:

I _______________________________ (your name here) pledge that I will comment on the things I read on this blogsite. I understand it does not have to be very long (1,000 to 20,000 words will do), AND it does not have to be complimentary — though I am hereby informed of the terribly weak state of the author’s confidence, and anything negative may possibly ignite a reaction that he (the author) is not legally nor morally responsible for.

I will also recommend this site to 10 of my best friends by the end of the day, or some really dark calamity will occur to me and I’ll rue my decision not to honor this pledge.

By the way, in the mere reading of this pledge, you are actually saying it in your mind (do you hear it?), and, therefore, have — by default — agreed to it, this _____ day of __________, 20___.

I know you feel better already. From Facebook, I know that three percent of you will fill this out and post it to your blog, and the rest of you will incur the really dark calamity I’ve told you about. My condolences.

The good news is that, depending on the total number of people who look at this About Me part of my blog, I could be set for the rest of my life! But, I have no delusions of grandeur, as only three people have visited it since I began my blog over a year and a half ago. And they are relatives.

What? Is that my voice I’m hearing echoing through the canyons of blogdom?

So, for all you visitors from the UK — cheers! And from Italy, ciao! From France, au revoir! From Russia,  Do svidaniya! And that’s all I’m going to write. If you are from another country as a visitor to my blog, and chance upon this part, then comment by leaving your language translation of  ”goodbye.”

Thanks!

BTW: My very first poem that I put on my blog is entitled “The Bone-Pickers,” and it’s listed under the poetry genre. I like that one. My favorite short-story is one of the short stories published in my book, Through the Glass Darkly, published on Amazon and listed under L. Stewart Marsden. I’ll give  you a dollar if you can guess which one it is. Only one guess to a guesser.

– L. Stewart Marsden

updated Feb. 17, 2013

(copyright © 2013, Lawrence S. Marsden)